The 3A-1 entered 2023 with a defending State Champion program, a defending State Runner-up program, and four programs boasting new head coaches. Needless to say, the preseason conference predictions were pretty difficult to add up. After just two weeks of conference play, the 3A-1’s final rankings are about as predictable as the Arkansas weather. Although everyone still looks at Booneville and Charleston as the heads of the conference this season, the rest could be seen as a possible coin flip of who’s who. The media and fans tend to look at things like the strength of schedules and previous scores to determine where teams might stand this early in the season and for good reason. The 3A-1s non-conference schedule went pretty much as expected with Charleston and Booneville going in loaded for bear as their combined non-conference schedule had a total of five 4A opponents and a 5A opponent. The rest of the conference scheduled a mixed bag of 4A, 3A, and 2A teams. In the process of everything, some teams won by a lot while others were edged out in close losses. But if you scratch out the math of the non-conference games and just look at the first two weeks of conference, a lot can be seen….or can it?
Photo courtesy of Malinda Mizell
The current leaders of the 3A-1 are definitely Booneville, Charleston, and Mansfield. All three programs sit at 2-0 in conference play and have dominated their opponents in the process. Both Mansfield and Charleston share a win over the Greenland Pirates with Charleston winning at home 51-9 while Mansfield traveled to Greenland to pummel the Pirates 65-0. If you do the math judging solely by points scored minus points against a like opponent, Mansfield would be a 23-point favorite over Charleston. Booneville and Mansfield also share a like opponent as both defeated West Fork with the Bearcats being victorious 40-0 in West Fork while Mansfield won at home over West Fork with a 38-8 final score. Again, using the same algorithm, Booneville would only be a 10-point favorite over the Tigers on paper. Charleston and Booneville’s non-conference schedules were hands down tougher than Mansfield’s, but their like conference opponents show them to be closer than expected. Those numbers sound great if you’re a Mansfield fan, but remember, the math is done on paper, not on the field.
Photo courtesy of Joey Bolin
A perfect example of why non-conference schedules and math do not win conference games was played just last week as a new rivalry was created for Hackett and Lavaca. Dubbed “The Battle of Sebastian County”, the Hornets were severe underdogs to Lavaca’s XBOX like offensive numbers going into the game. Lavaca had rolled through four games outscoring opponents 176-34 before heading to The Hive to face Hackett. The Golden Arrows did exactly what everyone had predicted to do against Hackett by dousing the Hornets with a commanding 35-7 lead at halftime. This left Lavaca merely one score away from enacting the mercy rule on the Hornets so by the math, the game should have been done and over with right there. But what Hackett did in the second half is why the game on the field is more important than the numbers on paper. The Hornets defense shut down Lavaca’s offense and didn’t allow a single point in the second half while their offense swarmed the end zone to score an unheard of 35 consecutive points to defeat the Golden Arrows 42-35.
Photo courtesy of Malinda Mizell
Although the Cedarville Pirates didn’t pull off an upset, they too can be in the mix of why schedules and math don’t add up sometimes. Cedarville was 0-5 going into their match with Charleston in Week2 of conference play, yet still hung tight early on by holding the defending State Champs to a mere 7-0 lead at the end of the first quarter before Charleston ran away with a 37-16 win. The West Fork Tigers fell to Booneville 40-0 last week, but they held the Bearcats to a 14-0 lead at the end of the first quarter which is quite a commendable feat. Each team in the 3A-1 still has a mathematical chance at winning the conference and making the State Playoffs going into Week3 of conference play. Sure, some are favored big-time in future games while others are huge underdogs, but you can’t count any team in the 3A-1 out quite yet. Hackett holds the tiebreaker over Lavaca after their win as both teams now sit at 1-1 in conference play. Cedarville, Greenland, and West Fork are all currently 0-2 but will have a shot at making a State Playoff push later in the season. The only team to not have played any of the current Top3 teams is Lavaca but they’ll have a chance to knock off one or more of the contenders as the Golden Arrows will play Mansfield, Booneville, and Charleston for the last three games of their regular season.
There are only three teams left with an undefeated conference record right now as Booneville, Charleston, and Mansfield are sitting pretty at 2-0. That is guaranteed to change though as one team will have no choice but to lose when Mansfield travels to Charleston on Friday, October 6th. Booneville will face off against the Greenland Pirates but will then have to travel to both Mansfield and Charleston for the following two weeks. When it comes to the current Top3 teams, strength of schedule favors the Bearcats, home-field advantage favors Charleston, and the stat numbers favor Mansfield. Just don’t forget about Hackett, Lavaca, Cedarville, West Fork, and Greenland as they could upset the balance of powers on any given Friday. Basically, no matter how you math the math, the math will not be mathing until the scoreboard shows 0:00 in the fourth quarter of each game. So instead of trying to calculate stats, scores, schedules, and all of the other ways the 3A-1 conference teams might pan out, just load up in the car and go enjoy some great 3A-1 football over the next few weeks.
